Back

Hiding from a gale

    We were heading down the outside of Moresby Island having finally dropped the spinnaker cause the winds were just too light. We picked up a Prince Rupert Coast Guard weather warning on VHF channel 16, "Pan, Pan....". A southerly gale was headed for the Queen Charlotte Islands. Hard to believe when you are rolling in the Pacific swell with no wind. I started checking the charts for a close place to get the boat tucked safely into an anchorage. It looked like we could enter Flamingo Inlet, motor about 4 miles deep into the inlet and be well protected from a Southerly blow. I started to lay a course on the digital charts. (Chart: Flamingo Inlet, Moresby Island, Queen Charlottes) I noticed that chart 3858, the detail chart of the area was not included in the digital charts. This chart is from a 1935 survey. It apparently got left out of the digital charts because its longitude datum is off for GPS positions. Fortunately I had a 1967 version of the paper version of the chart on board. This was really the first time and only time during the entire trip that the digital charts failed me. The 1967 version of the chart is printed in black and white and had an original price tag of $1.50 new. For this price I'd buy all the charts I could. 

    The rocks in the entrance and along Flamingo Bay are pretty tricky to navigate. Fortunately it was a clear day with enough swell running to mark the dangers in the entrance. Entrances like this can take a few years off the navigators life. We worked our way to Staki Bay (Chart: Staki Bay, 3858 Paper Chart) at the head of Flamingo Inlet. The weather was fine and we were doubting the forecasted gale would actually show up. I set the Bruce anchor with 250 ft of rode in about 25 feet of water. All seemed well. There was a black bear feeding on the beach with a small deer not more than 30 feet away from him. I had anchored assuming a blow out of the S to SW. Since the winds were light and out of the NW right now, we were a little closer to the shore than I would have liked. After a few hours the wind veered to the S and started blowing 10-15 kts inside the bay. Nothing to worry about. As darkness approached it was getting clear that there was really going to be a gale. I decided to drop a second anchor. Got out the big Fortress FX-37, serious storm anchor for this size boat. Rigged up a long rode and jumped in the dinghy to go set it. I could not get the stupid Tohatsu outboard to start. It had been giving us trouble on and off throughout Alaska. It seems pretty finicky about the gas it gets. It was close to dark now, I was frustrated and didn't want to waste anymore time. I rowed the anchor out into wind, now blowing 20-25 kts. We added a good amount of chafe gear to the anchor rodes at the bow and I went below feeling pretty secure. We picked up a weather report that evening. Rose Spit, on the NW side of the island recorded winds over 50 kts. Our winds that night inside the inlet never topped 30 kts. We spent the next day sitting out the gale - lots of tea and lots of reading. By 6 pm of the second day the winds were starting to calm a bit. The next morning we pulled up all of our anchor gear and headed out into a rolly, foggy sea. Leaving Flamingo Inlet in low visibility put the fear of navigating back into our souls.

    From Flamingo Inlet we headed to Sang Gwaii, previously known as Anthony Island. This small island is a United Nations Heritage Site. (Info on Gwaii Haanas National Park) There are remains of many long houses as well as a dozen or so mortuary totems. It is a magical place with an interesting history. The Haidas were an aggressive tribe that controlled the Queen Charlotte islands. They crossed Hecate Strait, a formidable task in a modern boat, in cedar canoes. These trips were for trading and as well as for war parties .The Haidas were almost wiped out by diseases delivered by the white traders and explores. There population was decimated to the point that the villages were abandoned and the few remaining Haidas re-grouped in Skidegate and Masset. Sang Gwaii was abandoned at the turn of the century.

Mortuary totems. Chiefs and other respected members of the tribe were placed in small boxes at the top of these poles.

Totems being reclaimed by the forest

Leaving the Queen Charlottes

    After rounding the south end of Moresby Is. time was getting short and we were ready to make our passage to Vancouver Island.  Before we started we just had to travel the 35 miles up the east coast of Moresby so we could visit  Hotsprings Island. Hotsprings Island has the nicest, cleanest hot springs on the northwest coast. They been in use for hundreds of years.   

    After we soaked ourselves in the Hotsprings we spent the night on a mooring at Ramsay Island. (Chart: Hotsprings and Ramsay Islands). The trip to Vancouver Island was a little over 200 miles. By the time we included the extra mileage due to jibing the total trip was about 250 miles. We left early in the morning and motored for about an hour and half south into Hecate Strait. The winds started to pickup from the NE and we got undersail. When we eventually cleared the end of the Queen Charlotte Islands the winds veered to the NW for a boisterous crossing of Queen Charlotte Strait. By the time nightfall hit the winds were in the mid to high 20 kts and the seas were rolling in from the Pacific. We caught up via VHF with a friends boat making the crossing at the sane time. They left from the southern end of the Queen Charlottes and were headed for Port Hardy, the top end of Vancouver Island, ready to continue down the Inside Passage. We were headed for the outside passage, going down the west coast of Vancouver. We planned to go west of the Scott Islands and make our landfall in Quatsino Sound. 

    The trip was bit on the bumpy side. I remember waking early on the second day to take the 6 am watch. The sun was coming up and were nearing the Scott Islands. Bouncing around looking for the head, I had to remind myself with the mantra, "I love to sail, I love to sail". Once on deck it was back to actually liking sailing. The wind was pretty light now, with the swell still rolling us around. We tried setting a spinnaker and managed to get the thing so twisted it looked like one of those pasta Rotini's. The batteries were running low from a night of running lights and autopilot. So we started the engine, untangled the spinnaker enough to get it below and motored off for a few hours. As we approached land the we got a lift from the land winds and had a great sail past the Kains Island light marking the entrance to Quatsino Sound. 

    We headed to up to Winter Harbor only to find a tried ex-fishing town. The town is like many on the west coast of Vancouver, a shell of its previous self. These towns lived and died on the fishing industry. As you travel down from Alaska to Vancouver you see the subtle changes in the forests. Most of SE Alaska is covered by the Tongass National Forest, the largest national forest in the US. You see thousands of acres of Sitka Spruce, Cedar, Pine, and Hemlock. As you drift into view of the forest of Western Vancouver Island the trees give way to huge clear-cuts and ugly road scars. The western portion of the island seems to have been managed more as a strip mine than a renewable resource. OK, I'm off my soap box - for an area that will need to grab more and more of its business from tourism it seems foolish to mismanage the areas core resources.

    The total passage took about 34 hours. Not a particularly fast passage. Our friends heading toward Port Hardy, a shorter trip than ours, ended up making their landfall after two nights out. So all in all our trip was reasonable - and most of all it was a fun sail. 

    Heading down the NW portion of Vancouver sends you around the Brooks Peninsula. This odd looking rectangle sticks 10 miles out into the Pacific. Its position below the mountains and out at sea causes it to have its own weather systems. Through much of the summer the gale force winds will be forecasted for Solander Island, just off Brooks, while areas just 20 miles away will be forecast to have 5-15 kts. of wind. Fortunely Solander Island has an automated weather reporting station that updates the wind speed numbers every few hours. We past Solander about 5 miles offshore with a NW 30 kts blow. With a reef in the main a small jib showing the surfing was exhilarating. Running down the face of the Pacific swells at 12.6 kts was just plain fun. The boat handled like it was on rails - a joy to drive.

Surfing off Brooks Peninsula

The End

    The last long passage was the 90 mile run down the Start of Juan De Fuca. We didn't hit any wind till we approached the Swiftsure Bank. From here on in the wind blew a nice 15 kts out of the west till we could see the famous Race Rock Light tower. Here things got a little crazy, with 4 kt rivers of current going first one way then another and winds blowing over 30 kts. At one point we had the boat will trimmed on a close reach doing 8.5 kts. Only problem was that the Race Rock Light just didn't seem to be moving. A quick check of the GPS should us making only 2 to 3 kts over the ground. We finally entered Victoria Harbor about 10:30 at night tying up at the dock behind the classic Empress Hotel.  

Race Rocks

What worked, what didn't, what was cool, what wasn't

Back

Copyright 2002 Paul Lever